Throughout history, crime and punishment have gone hand in hand. Protesters in Delhi, infuriated by a grotesque gang rape of a 23-year-old girl, have demanded the death penalty for such offenders, which was first publicly raised by BJP leader LK Advani many years ago. Read more

Just a few days before Obama’s “Yes We Can” Denver convention four years ago, I had told Carolyn Sauvage Mar, a Democrat campaigner in Delhi, that America should allow an international group of eminent citizens to vote for the US president. A bizarre idea but American politics is hardly just about America. Read more

I do not know what the cultured political stalwarts of the BJP have to say about it, but Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s chief minister, let a great opportunity slip when he turned down a Muslim skullcap and a keffiyah, a traditional tussled kerchief, offered to him as mementos recently. Read more

The Bharatiya Janata Party is on a high. It is basking in the afterglow of anti-corruption revolutions, financial scandals, inflation and the comeback of one of its most provocative Hindutva mascots – Ms. Uma Bharti. Read more

Although historically aware of its disadvantaged sections and their special needs, India has decisively switched from ‘appeasing’ Muslims — its largest minority — to budgeting for them.

Two things in recent years have helped institutionalise minority budgeting. One is the creation of a minority affairs ministry by the Congress-led UPA government in 2004 and, as a result, yearly budgetary allocations made to it. Read more

Israel evokes varying degrees of hostility in the Muslim world because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, a sea change in India’s relations with Israel has taken place, as we become Israel’s closest ally in Asia. What Indian Muslims should make of this, I thought, as I saw fenced-off Palestinian homes just outside Jerusalem? Read more

Today I convert, though momentarily but happily, willingly. For all my faith, I am determined to consider the Babri Masjid issue without my skullcap on. I tried being a Hindu for a while, not quite the practising way, but hopefully sincerely enough to reflect on what the dust of the Babri mosque should give rise to. Read more